A High-Income Family of Four Passes the Means Test

James and Tori got into financial trouble when James’ health began to fail. After he (mostly) recovered, the family had over $200,000 in consumer debts, plus student loans, and another $100,000 in taxes.  Tori was a stay-at-home mom with two teens.

James had been working two full time jobs, until his health forced him to cut back.

The cutoff for automatic eligibility (the median income) for a family of 4 was $141,113, and James was making $187,000. (James had been working two full-time jobs making $300,000 before his health issues forced him to cut back.)

How did we get this to work on the means test?

The means test is the form we fill out if you are over the median income cutoff for automatic elgiblity. The government assigned you how much you can spend for food and clothing, or rent. But some are open-ended, and we identified the ones that got us approved.

• The back taxes helped. Chapter 7 discharged the 2019 and 2018 taxes, but the big tax year 2024 survived. Because it survived, we could budget to pay it in his means test.
• On-going medical expenses. Even with good insurance and James’ improved health, the family out of pocket medical costs were over fifteen thousand dollars a year.
• Three car payments. (We were ready with an explanation why the older teen needed a car, but no one questioned it.)

Conclusion

James and Tori were able to pass the means test, because of the hard work they did, getting me the info I needed.

PS This is a real example

But I don’t use real names. I first wrote about how big families can pass here.